The present disclosure relates to a semiconductor device, more particularly relates to a fail address detector, a semiconductor memory device including the same and a method of detecting fail address.
A semiconductor memory device is a memory device embodied by a semiconductor, such as silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), etc. A semiconductor memory device is classified into a volatile memory device and a non-volatile memory device.
A volatile memory device is a memory device where stored data becomes lost if power is not supplied. Examples of a volatile memory device include a static RAM (SRAM), a dynamic RAM (DRAM), a synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) and so on. A non-volatile memory device is a memory device where stored data remains even though power is not supplied. Examples of a non-volatile memory device include a read only memory (ROM), a programmable ROM (PROM), an electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), an electrically erasable and programmable ROM (EEPROM), a flash memory, a phase-change RAM (PRAM), a magnetic RAM (MRAM), a resistive RAM (RRAM), a ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), etc. A flash memory device is classified into a NOR type memory device and a NAND type memory device.
A semiconductor memory device includes a fail address detector for replacing an abnormal area with a redundancy area if the abnormal area exists in, for example, a memory cell array. The fail address detector loads a fail address representing the abnormal area when, for example, the semiconductor memory device is powered-up. The fail address detector compares the loaded fail address with a received address. If the loaded fail address is identical to the received address, the received address is replaced with a repair address representing the redundancy area.